Echos of Sun
Tessa Krochak
Co-designed with Copper and Sun
This project took place on the unceded ancestral territories of the Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), and Tsleil-Waututh (səlilwətaɬ) Nations using resources that are from or have travelled here and material knowledge from makers and teachers living on this land, both indigenous and settler.
These pieces explore the ephemeral moment of sunlight catching your eye to encourage the experience of being present and engaging in stillness in Sun through wearable copper pieces.
The pieces are worn up the arms, inviting the body to open up towards the sun and extend your arms out to it, creating an interaction between the user as they reflect sunrays back off the copper. Inviting the body to hold itself in a way that catches the waves of light. adjusting our position to her, becoming a larger conversation of our need to change our actions for the presence of nature.Transposing light onto the body through these pieces.
Through this project came a practice of appreciation.
In the embodied process of making one-on-one with a material, I am not able to dictate. Instead, I must nurture this collaboration before I am able to have more say in what we create. And the constant relationship which is developed over being present with something. This ritual of observing Sun has grown me closer to each ray of light, noticing them more, appreciating them more, reminding me of my relationality with them, making me want to care for them.
Sun.
An acquaintance I know from afar,
One, I would like to know better.
She visits me varying amounts, dependant on Time.
Gifting me rays of light against natural forms,
Highlighting the darkness behind architectures created.
The more moments I spend with her, the more I start to notice
How much she enjoys playing against ripples of water and dancing with foliage.
I desire a way to move with her,
To play with light the way these beings do.
Copper.
I develop my relationship with Copper, becoming intertwined with it.
The movements I use to distort Copper reverberate back onto me with every hammer.
I learn better ways to work with Copper, changing my actions to better communicate with them.
My wants as a designer have changed by the way Copper wants to move.
I grow closer to them, speaking the first words of their language
Every time I heat copper, it listens to me more than the last,
Becoming a slow process of movement over time.
Model: Saanvi Bhat
Transference.
The outcomes of this project started with an exploration of the transference of light through and on different materials, moving through interactions and documentation of light.
This began with being inspired by lichen on the trees. After engaging with them outside through walks and capturing them in my camera, I started to play with ways of distorting their forms. I started by abstracting their silhouettes digitally and cutting them out.
With these cut forms, I was now able to shine light through. Creating one interaction with light. Transposing light and then capturing those forms again. This time, transference happened through cyanotype, an ink that is revealed by UV light. Leaving imprints on material, flowing softly when it is wet or stopping sharply when it is dry.
Starting with the abstracted forms I created, but eventually leading me back outside to imprint the shadows of beings of the garden.
Transference of light through paper to ink, becoming the second interaction. This leads me to think of how these surfaces can become objects. I bring them back into the digital world to pull these shapes from the cyanotype into 3-dimensional forms with the intention of printing them, casting them in plaster, and then casting pewter into them to create reflective surfaces for light to bounce off of.
Pewter and light worked together in an interesting way where light rays get stuck in the crevices and bounce freely off the high parts. However, there was something about the process that did not speak the same language I had been interacting with before, and it was harder to source, as a lot of this material second-hand, as some contained amounts of lead in it.
Instead, I explored elsewhere and, with the help of Splash (Aaron Nelson-Moody) and his teachings, started to work with copper, which felt right for this project.
This started with cutting my designs from the cyanotypes, transferring the pattern onto a planar surface. However, to engage with the body and the light, these forms had to be more sculptural. This led me to drawing out the copper into more 3-dimensional shapes. Completely leaving the forms in the cyanotype, but instead being inspired by the original contours of the lichen in my head, rather than the photographs of their lines.
Eventually, through the process of understanding copper more, learning different techniques and constantly observing and iterating how both light and the body interact with these pieces, I came to these pieces.
Copper wearables that echo rays of Sun.
